


A Colder World Than Mine

by Keenir



Series: The Multiverse [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Thor Movies, Gen, Pre-Fantastic Four 2, Pre-Iron Man 2, Sif got turned into a Jotun, Sigyn is a Jotun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU.  Odin must leave two in Jotunheim.  This is how they fare, even with a great change thrust upon them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hostages

**Author's Note:**

> "He who has a child, gives a hostage to time." -Jack Kennedy.

Lord of Jotunheim and all within it, Laufey looked unflinchingly at Odin, the lord of Asgard. Laufey informed him of the trespass by those Odin was accountable for, and heard Odin's answer.

What happened next, it very nearly did not happen at all -- Laufy considered holding his tongue, but he chose against it, and informed Odin that, "You may leave, Odin Allfather. But that which is mine must remain."

Odin's mind was quick, fast as fire. "Would you host two, then?" Odin said. "That is a counter permitted by the treaty you are making use of."

_I know._ Laufey gave a shallow bow, never taking his eyes off Odin. "Though my court has not been host in many years, I would not refuse."

"Father?" Thor asked warily. _We have nothing of Laufey's, save perhaps for the victory he may possibly have achieved had I not had my hammer and had you not arrived when you did. And why would you offer up... Are you offering him something to accompany the victory he has not yet won?_

Loki watched the two mighty lords facing off, unable to stop his mind from superimposing the blueing of his arm from every thought he had. _It cannot be._ But Loki spoke before Odin could do more than turn his gaze upon his sons and the Warriors Three. "I will stay. Hostage."

"No, brother," Thor said in the next instant. "You -"

"Your brother has made his decision, Thor," Odin said, an unfamiliar tinge to the voice, a tinge none of the youths had heard from the Allfather in all the history of their lives. "And no, you may not," forestalling the declaration he knew would be next in arriving.

"Then I will be a fellow hostage," Sif said. "No Jotuns shall lay a hand upon your brother, Thor," she assured him.

"Your valor and skill are not at question, little one," Laufey said to her. To Odin while she glared, Laufey said, "If I return this pair to you, then I will return them to you."

"And if you do not..." Odin warned.

"If I do not, then I shall return the one to you. Of course."

**.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.**

"Why are we here?" Sif demanded to know the instant she and Loki had been brought to Laufey's throne room, as that placed a certainty that Odin had left them here, at least for now. _Some inscrutable plan, no doubt,_ she felt.

Asgard's throne sat in the center of their realm, equidistant from all corners of it.

Jotunheim's throne sat on an edge, and Laufey sat upon that throne. To one side, there was wilderness. To another side, ruins and destruction further than any eye could see.

From his throne, Laufey answered her, "You are here because you chose to be here. Trespass must be answered for."

"And that is what is yours?" Loki asked mockingly.

Laufey considered them, the two warriors who had come here from Asgard. _It would be simplicity itself to reveal Loki's true biology to the girl. But that would be insufficient answer for the trespass, and Loki would hate his nature more than he already does. However..._ and Laufey's mouth grinned at he looked at Sif.

Sif shivered, though she knew Laufey was not leering at her, she would have preferred it - _Warrior tales tell of how jotuns eat their enemies. And I am most certainly their enemy._

"Is that your plan, to sit there and stare at us?" Loki could not help but mock.

"No," Laufey said, rising to stand at his throne. To his guards ringing the exits of the throne room, "Bring me Skadi the daughter of the Deceased One, with reports of the realms. Inform Sigyn that she will have new responsibility," and two guards ran to obey despite the danger. Laufey took his time stepping down to ground level where Sif and Loki stood. "Where possible, I enjoin action," he said, standing before Sif.

"I do not fear you," Sif informed him.

"Then either you lie to me, or you lie to yourself," Laufey said. "Every warrior fears."

"I will not run. I will not duck. I will not wince."

"Honest of you to not vow not to assault me. But then, that would be more an act of fear than a show of avoidance could be."

Sif opened her mouth, but any attempt at reply was forestalled by Laufey swiftly placing his hand upon her scalp.

Loki tried to stop him, but found feet frozen to the floor, standing just out of reach of either of them. "Release her!" Loki ordered him.

Laufey could have replied that he was lord of Jotunheim, could have reminded Loki of whom was the hostage, could have recited the treaty by which he and Odin had ended the last war between their worlds. Laufey did nothing openly. But what he was doing...made Sif scream as her skin began to turn a thick green color, spreading from her scalp down to her chin, then down her spine, coating her until even her finger- and toe-tips were the same color as the rest of her.

She wanted to vomit, so badly did her innards burn. But at the same time, she feared to, feeling that her body would invert, leaving her guts dangling from her own mouth.

She could feel her bones buttress and span even as they decalcified into cartilaganous structures which would be at home within any shark. Any humanoid shark, at least.

Sif looked down, and watched as her armor fused into her skin, feeling the same thing happening in her arms as across her clavicle, on her legs, and elsewhere.

Then her vision too began to blur and shift, as focal ranges changed.

Filled with not just worlds of pain, but also a coherent rage, Sif knocked Laufey's hand aside and charged at him - only to find herself frozen in a pillar of ice.

"Feel better now?" Loki snapped at Laufey, not caring if the realm's lord heard that any better than he had heard the things Loki had spoken while Sif was undergoing the transformation.

"She will," Laufey said. "Though you both may not," and Laufey walked out of the room.

Tearing his feet free of the ice prisons, Loki darted over to Sif. _I'll get you out,_ thought Loki, who would have said it, had he an idea how to accomplish it without any tools or weapons. He looked Sif in the eyes, trying to pay no heed to the way they were turning transformational green to red. He was trying even harder not to see how her body was shifting to a cool blue. _Scant good it does to be master of deception, when one who most needs me, is trapped in something which cannot be tricked._ And so Loki jumped at the pillar encasing Sif, slamming his arm at the thing.

"That will only hurt you," he was informed.

"I do not care," Loki replied, thudding into the ice again and again, taking only a slight glance to see there was a small Jotuness gracing one of the exits which had once been the place of a guard.

"That sort of icecast can only be broken by the one who set it, or from within."

Hearing that, Sif moved an arm, cracking a lot of it, and punched, which set the rest to falling away - and also knocked Loki to the ground, slightly covered by her ice. "Sorry," Sif said, and extended a hand to help him up - but drew it back when she saw how it looked.

"You're free," Loki said, half wanting to say 'I am like you', and yet knew that if he showed her, she would be right to dismiss it as an illusion, part of an attempt to cheer her up with a show of unity. "But who is this?"

"I am Sigyn. Lord Laufey has informed me that you are my yoke," she said to Sif. "To ensure you can use your body, I am to tutor you. For any misbehavior you may engage in, I am to bear the punishment. Should you wish to explore or journey, I must accompany you."

"And should you fail to accompany me?" Sif asked, trying not to wonder if her body, so _so jotun_ in appearance, could manipulate ice and other things like the Jotuns did with such ease. Tried not to, for there were too many things in that line of thought.

"My life is forfeit, and you must kill me."

"And if I escape without your knowledge?"

"The same," Sigyn said.

"Why?" Sif and Loki both asked.

"To discourage reprisals, and to ensure your behavior."

Sif smiled, thinking of past adventures and incidents. "And what of Loki?"

Sigyn looked confused. "Why would I be yoked to him?"


	2. The Corner Of Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things are more worrisome than others to learn. And sometimes we just want to help.

They left the throne room of Lord Laufey, and crossed the brief peaks, then down to where three glaciers met in a valley. "Tunnels," Sif observed. 

"There is a long way around, but continents tend to take some time," Sigyn apologized. 

"An entire continent?" 

"Yes. The only other path to my...home. My place of rest." 

Oh but of course Loki leaped on that like a cat to a maybe-wounded bird. "Why the hesitation?" he asked. 

"Back when we were carving stones and fitting dowels, we had houses," Sigyn said. "Not so much need now. Rest stops, perches, niches and crevasses." 

"So now you're a force of nature, is that it?" Sif laughed. 

"In the same way as - the jotun has become Sif - with word order." 

"Nature is you? Is all of you?" 

Sigyn nodded. "Moljinar," and led the way into one of the tunnels. 

Sif ran ahead and stopped in front of Sigyn, asking the jotunness, "What if I don't want to go to your perch or whatever?" 

Sigyn stopped and lowered her head before Sif. "That is your decision, one you may have voiced before we traveled this far." 

"This far and no more." 

In response, Sigyn sat down. 

"Delicious, isn't it, power?" Loki whispered in her ear when he was near. 

Sif shook her head. "This isn't power, Loki, this is the obedience found in fealty." 

"Some would call that _power_. Not you or I, but some." 

_Speaking of obedience..._ "Is there anything in the local food that would keep us here or do us harm?" Sif asked. _Some say the Dwarves put a geas in their foodstuffs to keep hungry trespassers from leaving their realm._

"Nothing," Sigyn said. 

"Anything that would prove disabling to Loki?" 

"Any such things were driven to extinction by the War." 

"Then lets go hunting." 

"You want to catch your own food?" Sigyn asked. 

"Yes, I do. Or does Jotunheim lack in beasts?" 

"Perhaps she's meant to catch and cook all your meals for you," Loki suggested. 

Sif rolled her eyes at him. 

Sigyn stood up and placed one foot in the middle of the tunnel corridor floor, the ground meltwatering away until there was a circle of water two arms-length across, at which point Sigyn drew her foot back; the melting stopped. 

"Now what?" 

"Reach in and hunt whatever you hunger for," Sigyn said. 

Sif leaned over by the circle, then hesitated. "What's the - Is there a catch?" 

"None." 

Sighing, Sif looked into the water, but could see nothing down there but algae clinging to the rocks in what had been an enclosed bubble of water. _Perhaps its hiding in or beneath the algae,_ she thought, as there were no crevices or tunnels for quarry to escape down. Sif reached into the water, feeling along the stones, and her fingertips felt something twitch beneath them - she tightened her grip before it could escape, and pulled it out from the water to get a look at it. 

It was an animal in all ways but that it looked like algae and felt like algae until - It caught fire as soon as it was no longer below the water. Sif's first instinct was to crush it against the wall, which certainly squished the creature, but failed utterly at extinguishing the flame. 

"I cannot," Sigyn said before Sif could make a demand. "Its fire only leaves when it is underwater or eaten." 

Trying an idea, Loki flicked an _appearance_ at it, making it appear as though the flames were dying to nothingness. Sif looked at him, and nodded her thanks; one pulled food out of fire, and this helped get the mind past the idea of ingesting fire. 

"Not hungry?" Loki asked Sigyn, noting she was the only one not taking pieces off the algaebeast. 

"It is best to eat before being summoned to perform tasks," Sigyn said. "One's lord may send one anywhere for any length of time." 

"In Asgard, that just builds an appetite," Sif countered. 

"As you say," she conceeded. 

"Do Not Do That," Sif threatened her. "Say what you're going to say. Tiptoe delicately around me, and I'll kill you for it." 

Loki nodded. "She's done it. Some times were quicker than others." 

“Now, what were you going to say?” Sif asked of Sigyn. 

“You have the right to eat. I may have your scraps.” 

“More of Laufey’s words?” 

Rather than answer that directly, “You are a warrior. Both of you are,” Sigyn said. 

“Everyone is.” 

Sigyn looked at her, waiting for the proverbial boot to drop on the equally proverbial unwary hand. 

“You – you aren’t a warrior?” Sif asked. 

“A pure scientist, then?” Loki asked. “The sort both our worlds had during the Jotun War.” _Individuals whose expertise at crafting and devising, made them too valuable to risk them gaining glory in the fields._

“There have been no wars since I was conceived,” Sigyn said. 

“Then you just haven’t had the opportunity to fight,” Sif said. 

“I hide from birds and flee from fights. I am no warrior.” 

“Birds?” Sif and Loki asked, and it was so hard not to smile at that. 

_I could name some warriors of Asgard who think birds will get tangled in his hair if he isn’t careful,_ Sif thought. 

“Yes,” Sigyn said. “A beak as sharp as its talons, and faster than anyone.” 

_I’m sure there’s a fantastic story attached to that. For another time._ “Don’t wait for scraps,” Sif told her, right before, “And don’t worry, we’ll protect you from the falcons,” Sif told her. “For now, we rest.” 

“I’ll take first watch,” Loki volunteered. 

“I can do it,” Sigyn said. 

"Anything I say?" Sif asked. There was an old game on Asgard with that idea behind it; though this was another order entirely. 

_No doubt you have a plan, a reason to repeat the question. Wearing her down?_ Loki wondered. 

"I have already answered you on that," Sigyn said. 

"Change me back," Sif told her, neck craned back to look up at Sigyn. Sometimes Jotun heights were annoying. 

"How?" she asked down to Sif, respect in her voice alongside curiosity. 

"However it is done, do it!" Sif demanded, feeling a slight heaviness in her hands, and hoping it would go away. 

It did. 

"My power does not run in that direction," Sigyn said. "Thus I cannot." 

"Then whose does?" _I'll go to them._

"None who can overpower Lord Laufey." 

"That's not what I'm asking for," Sif growled. 

"Except it is," Sigyn said. "Our spells are as much a part of us as our limbs." 

"Like Moljinar without Thor," Loki asked. 

"I think," Sif said, "she means like how Odin's declarations have his authority backing them." _We obey Odin's decrees whether or not the Allfather is there. Or we are supposed to._

"Yes," Sigyn said to Sif. To Loki, "Moljinar let fly is like our spellspears as they move through the air, no other time." 

“Anything I say? Then go to sleep until its your turn,” Sif told her. 

**~~~~~~**

**Asgard: The Outer Precinct: Awake:**

Few came out here deliberately. Some stumbled to here accidentally, in the midst of a tryst or a secrecy, but such events in youth never led them back here later in life. 

Through the skies soared one of the Ravens, an all-seeing all-sensing bird greater even than some of the buildings in Asgard itself. 

Odin’s arrival here was a quiet affair, known only to the smallest number of people, with Odin himself striding to the edge of the lake in the center of these trimmed hedges and henges and cut lawns. “I greet you, old one, wise one,” Odin said, knowing the ancient would be here because there was nowhere else this One went. 

“I recognize your return, young one,” Mirmir said, slogging inchworm-quick around the bole of a tree greater than any but Yraggisil. “This concerns your successors.” 

“I had not known what would become of them,” Odin said. _Loki is in Jotunheim with Sif, and Thor is on Midgard, divorced from his hammer._

“You bound yourself to this Tree for days. I spent my youth on it.” 

“Then I ask this of you, tell me what will come next?” 

“Much learning, betrayal, brother combating brother, sister killing sister – who is the sister of your fallback successor?” asking a question they both knew they both knew the answer to. 

_I will send her away, then._

“And,” Mirmir said, “a return of the Offshoot.” _They departed when I was a babe in arms._

Odin’s blood ran cold. “I caused that?” 

“Cause, Allfather?” You are determining the reception the Nine Worlds give to the prodigal sons, nothing more.” 

_I see. Then if I had not come here about my sons, I would not have heard of the approaching return._ “And my sons?” Odin asked. 

“You have no sons, All Father. You have always known this.” 

Odin gave a slow nod. “I do.” 

“But I will answer you -- your dream you beheld at the end of your Jotun War, it will come to pass. Congratulations. Now leave.” 

Before Odin could do or say anything, he was back in his own throne room. What he barked at the attending soldier was “Bring me Hod and Idun!” a command immediately obeyed. Like every other day in that regard. 

**~~~~~~**

**Jotunheim: Dream:**

_It was a sunny day in Asgard. Like every other day in that regard._

_All knelt before Sif as she walked up the royal steps and up them to the Throne Of Asgard. She turned and sat._

_Everyone looked at her, watched her. Stared._

_In their youth, Thor and Loki had been declared the successors of Odin; and if both boys perished before Odin’s death, then, Odin had decreed, Sif would rule Asgard._

_Farandel was the first to call out “Long Live Queen Sif!” which was seconded by Heimdall._

_But not all acclaimed the blue woman on the throne._

**~~~~~~**

**Jotunheim: Awake:**

Sif woke in silence, practiced in being awake without giving it away – a useful piece of learning for naps between battles. 

She could see that Loki was awake, and when he turned his head, he could see she was likewise. He half-rose and silently made his way over to sit beside her. 

“Nothing thus far?” Sif asked. 

“Not a thing,” Loki said, sounding that best kind of bored – the sort resigned to know that it is a good thing to not be interspersed by events or things. 

“Perhaps during my shift,” she offered. 

“We can but see,” he said. 

“We shall.” _What else can one say when forced to bide one’s time until the Jotun King decides to release you to go back home? Little but idleness -_ not an attractive choice for her - _and passing time with learning how to make do in this temporary prison of foreign flesh._

Later, Loki touched Sif’s arm, fingertips light on skin. His flesh changing hue to match hers. _Occuring from contact, like in that battle so recently and yet seemingly distant in its own way. Only this time I chose to._

“Loki,” Sif said, watching his hand, his forearm, studying it for hints that it couldn’t be what it seemed. _But you are a master of your art, Loki,_ when she could see no telltale cues anywhere. 

“Yes?” Loki asked. It still made no sense to him that Laufey had turned Sif into a Jotun, when that level of power surely should have had no difficulty in shattering the guise Loki had had all his life. _But I can lessen your isolation. You are not the only Jotun in this world, but you are the only Jotun you know. Well, and Sigyn of late. But you know me._

“Don’t.” 

“Or what?” he asked, taking no umbrage. 

“No lies.” _It’s a nice touch, but its not real. You’re Asgard, then and now. As for me…then only. Perhaps in the future once more._

“A lie?” Loki asked. 

“That’s your specialty; illusion, after all.” 

“And sometimes when I speak the truth, the mind calls it a lie because the alternative is less appetizing.” 

“And here I was thinking it was because they just didn’t like you,” Sif said. 

“That has been known to happen as well,” Loki granted. 

Feeling something strange, Sif placed one hand flat on the tunnel floor, and placed her ear atop that. “Something on approach. And coming here quickly,” she said as she and Loki rose to standing.

“Should we be surprised that our hostess is fleeing?” he asked as a still-half-asleep Sigyn tumbled herself into the waters that their last meal had lived in, and sealed it behind her.

“Her loss. We get the glory for whatever thinks it can kill us,” Sif said as the approaching thing came to a point in the tunnels where they could see it.

“That’s no Jotun,” Loki said.

“That’s obvious,” Sif said. “That’s a bird.”

“I fear to ask what a vole is like, then.”

The bird’s beak could only ever have been described as a pickaxe-tipped flag. With the exception of the beak and the talons, its entire body was clad in feather armor which, Loki had no doubt, could rebuff any projectiles hurled at it. Globular red eyes glared at them as it raced towards them.


	3. Mastering The Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walking and talking is easy...its the other thing that's a trick.

“That’s no Jotun,” Loki said.

“That’s obvious,” Sif said. “That’s a bird.”

“I fear to ask what a vole is like, then.”

The bird’s beak could only ever have been described as a pickaxe-tipped flag. With the exception of the beak and the talons, its entire body was clad in feather armor which, Loki had no doubt, could rebuff any projectiles hurled at it. Globular red eyes glared at them as it raced towards them.

Sif blinked, just looking at the bird's beak made her eyes itch with the sharpness of the avian blades at the front of its head. She half-glanced over at Loki to ask, "Remember when we were 'guests' of the Dwarven thinga?"

"Quite well," Loki answered cheerfully, flexing his fingers in preparation. "Though Thalassi may never forgive us."

"That is more Thor's concern," Sif said. _He's been indentured to Thor since the Incident we all agreed never to speak of._ "I believe now would be a good time to reenact that day."

Loki did not answer. He only stood in the middle of the tunnel, staring down the approaching bird, while Sif flattened herself into a depression in the side of the tunnel.

That bird roared, a sound shrill and echoing as was right, as it barreled towards Loki. It opened its mouth to scissor his skull off -

And went right through the illusive false appearance of a Loki who was not really there. It chomped its beak down, only missing Loki's real self by inches, the bird then skidded and slid away onto the ice, then curling up into a ball which rolled halfway up the next slope, and rolled back at them.

“I would have loved a toy like this when I was a girl,” Sif said as the beast uncurled, losing no speed as it switched back to bipedal locomotion. 

“There is a certain appeal to it,” Loki agreed. 

It shrieked and roared, and charged once more -

And passed right through him again, this time tripping over him as Loki grabbed both legs and held them together with all his strength. Meanwhile, up above, before Loki had gotten to the legs, Sif had leaped onto the bird's back and put the vulnerable part of its throat - right at its meeting point with the head - in a vice grip of her arms, squeezing evermore.

Wheezed breathing, near gasps puttered from the bird's throat.

But any thought of victory was premature, as the beast kicked out, thereby hurling Loki out behind it. It then leaped up against the tunnel ceiling, then doing the same again, and again. After a few goes, it shook itself like a wet dog, and Sif tumbled off. The bird stomped away down the tunnel.

 _Leaving?_ Loki thought.

...And then the flightless bird turned around and shrieked at them once more.

"Perhaps something else?" Loki asked Sif.

"Beowyf's Hall," Sif said, the green bruises fading away, leaving only incised blue skin and armor.

As one, they stared at the oncoming bird and together charged at it. During the run, Sif hummed "Da da da da da," a bit of what a human might have called Wagnerian.

"Please don't," Loki said.

At the last minute, just as the beast finally wised up and stepped to one side, Loki and Sif tackled its legs and lifted it, swinging the beak and body first into the ceiling, then into one wall, then the other. They let it hit the ground, Loki holding both legs as Sif strode to the neck and wrenched the head off successfully this time. _Repeated battering helps._ "Are you saying I cannot sing?"

"Nothing of the sort," Loki said. "Just that you tend to reserve the poorer choices for the most hazardous moments."

"So I can't pick good songs, is that it?" Sif asked, finding it easier to conceal the small smile in this Jotun form. 

"Only when our lives are possibly about to be ended."

"Ah."

Loki said, "A pity we didn't bring down the roof."

"Maybe if it puts its head back on and attacks again."

'Reasonable," as Sif tossed the bird skull aside and made her way to the sealed-over pool of water. With her foot, she smashed through the ice; with her hand, she pulled Sigyn up and out, dropping her on the ground to dry.

“You were afraid of a bird,” Sif said at Sigyn, still amazed despite the evidence of it. 

“Yes,” said Sigyn, still cowering as she’d done in the attack. _You didn't need me anyway. So what's the problem?_

“A mighty Jotun warrior,” Sif muttered, shaking her head. 

“Whoever said she was that?” asked a newcomer on the scene. “I am Skadi. Lord Laufey has bidden me deliver this news to you," Skadi said to them. 

"Well?" Loki asked. 

"Thor Odinson is armorless in Midgard." 

"Earth." 

She gave no response. 

_Armorless means weaponless,_ Sif knew, based on what she had so far picked up from Sigyn. "Why tell me?" she asked Skadi. 

"I obey my lord," Skadi said. 

Sif thought the remark was aimed at her, only to notice Skadi had aimed her venom, glare and all, at Sigyn. "Are you asking to join us?" Sif asked Skadi. 

"No. My long task is to keep watch on the paths to and from Jotunheim." 

"Oh. So you're a Jotun Heimdall." 

"Less prolific," Sigyn said quietly. 

Skadi took her leave and left. Her parting remark was, "Better to be unfecund, than to be a traitor's brood." 

From Sigyn's hands thrust great chilled roots which crushed boulders in their grip. All unseen and unheard, unspoken, as she drew them back in once Skadi was gone from this place. "I do not care for her," Sigyn said quietly. 

_As if that's a thought I might take offense at?_ Sif wondered. "Oh good, I worried I was the only one who thought so," she said, bolstering her. "We never chose our parents." 

"Truer words never were spoken," Loki said dryly. 

"I agree," Sigyn said. "But what our parents do, it colors us." 

Any time before today or, in part, this week, Sif may have said 'that is part of how our actions echo through eternity.' But now, today, Sif held out an arm and quipped, "Not I." 

Sigyn nodded. _Lord Laufey's actions are a product of his own mind, not for us to rationalize the wonders he performs._

"You were talking before about teaching me how to control the...what did you call it?" Sif asked. 

"The power," Sigyn said. "Don't worry about the word - it only carries signifigance when spoken with other words of our language. My language," she corrected herself. "You Asgard say 'with my bare hands, I did this.' Your empty hands are a default state, something you only mention when it is to emphasize a deed. We Jotun moved beyond that; our bare hands are but one tool in our arsenal." 

"Lovely. Now can we get on to the lesson?" Loki asked. 

"Think of a battle you were deprived of, someone you itch to combat, a toxin you once were fed," Sigyn said. "Not the idyllic life you had in Asgard." 

Even while she was sheathed in Jotun ridges and color, Loki could see Sif's features harden into a familiar focused... _rictus, some might call it._

In pure silence, Sif swung her good arm, knocking Sigyn down and nearly Loki as well, pinning her beneath an arm-thick pillar of ice stretching out from the wrist and hand of - "I did that?" Sif asked. 

From where he lay, his back on the frigid stone, "Asgard is not the paradise others see it as," Loki quipped at Sigyn. 

"Particularly not for a girl who wants to be more than a flagbearer, singer, or messenger," Sif agreed. 

"I see, I understand. My apologies," Sigyn said to Sif, not seeing what Loki - Prince of Asgard - could complain about. 

"How do I undo this?" Sif asked, tapping on the frozen extension. "Calm myself, find my center?" 

"No, that's for walking through walls," Sigyn said. "Considerably difficult, even for young Jotuns. No, treat it like a tool or a pet - call it back." 

_Riight, just summon it, and it'll go right back in my arm. Nothing weird about that,_ Sif rued, but her red eyes watched as the pillar shortened until it was a knobbly ring circling her wristbones. 

Sigyn nodded. 

"Down. Smooth out," Sif said, still feeling moderately silly that she was talking to her hand, in effect. And it complied. And that compliance gave her an idea, which grew a smile on her face. 

"Someone's in trouble," Loki remarked, amused as he drew back up to his feet. 

Sigyn knelt before Sif, waiting patiently. 

"Oh for Munin's... Get up," Sif told her. "Your job's to follow me and keep me safe, right, you said as much. Doing what I say, does that extend to if I ask to go to another realm?" 

"It does, but for Asgard," Sigyn answered. 

"Makes sense," she granted. "We don't need Skadi's help for this, do we?" 

"She watches the pathways. Control of travel is the duty of another," Sigyn said. "That way lies less vulnerability if anything should befall one." 

Sif and Loki considered what dangers could come to Asgard if anything happened to make Heimdall unable to do his job. 

**~~~~~**

**Location: Earth:**

Jane knocked on a window before she opened a door and sat in the passenger seat. "Morning," she said to the stranger they'd nearly run over yesterday.

"So it is," Thor said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

"You hungry?"

"I fear I am a poor guest, but I do not foresee that changing."

"You wanna talk about it?" Jane asked.

"Two of my friends were punished for my... Loki was right, it was rashness. They were forced to remain in the cold, while I was only banished to here."

 _Out in the cold? You're a spy? Your friends are spies?_ "You wish you had stood up for them," Jane said, having a memory of something like that.

"I tried the once, but that was more to talk them out of them remaining there. I fear I was in no hurry to claim for myself the penalty for what I saw as a righteous act."

"Can you go back and take responsibility?" Jane asked. "That willingness to admit it, might lessen any punishment."

 _How like Thalassi you are, Jane, a superb advisor._ "It is unlikely I will be permitted to end my banishment... but you are right, Jane, **I must** try," Thor said.

If Jane had known they would spend the rest of the day with him shouting at the sky, she might have worded it a little differently.

**~~~~~**

**Location: Jotunheim:**

The transit was easy to arrange - Sif was ultimately backed by the word of Laufey, after all - though the movement was rather a bit harsher than Heimdall's Bridge. Less of an evidence-leaver, at least in its favor, as the hoarfroast evaporated less than a minute after the realmcrossing was completed. When they landed on the dry stones of Earth, Sigyn dropped to her knees, Sif toppled and only her hands kept her from a sprawl across the dust, and only Loki remained standing. 

The parched air of this realm scraping at her throat, Sif rasped out the question of, "What is happening?" 

"Realmshock," Sigyn said, her shoulders thinner, fingers and palms flatter as she stood up. "A great advantage against an enemy with honor - unsporting to kill a foe who hasn't finished adjusting to the local conditions." More personally, "Think of a bellows, a veil, a sail, even a vein," as she herself split open, emerging from a shed skin, her new stature down at the human end of the height spectrum. _In the olden days before technology, we would eat our shed skin. Now..._ and Sigyn placed her hands on her larger skin, and soaked it in, reabsorbing it and its power into her smaller self. 

"What?" Sif asked. _Very well..._ and watched as her armor grew billowy; what had been cloth, now draping elegantly. And as it did so, bands of thick green echoed across her body and clothing and armor and hair, the same color as when Laufey had made her so Jotun. 

Pondering Sigyn's explanation, _Then why aren't I crumpled in a heap?_ Loki wondered. _Wait, Earth's air and warmth is most Asgardish, so my body's already acclimatized to all but the heat of where we are right now._

Once she was stabilized back to blue, "I look like an elf," Sif grumbled. _Only elves are not colored like Jotuns or like Asgards._

"Not enough arms, and an elf would be dead here," Sigyn said. 

"Not very encouraging, are you?" Loki asked. 

"Who wants to look like an elf?" 

"Is this my skin now?" Sif asked, plucking at the plated fabric. 

"It is your clothes, still. Your clothes are as much a part of your power as your spearmaking." 

"Mind control," Sif grumbled to herself, thinking of herself wearing the traditional brown robes of Asgard nobility - as a friend of Thor and of Loki, she had a right to wear them, after all.

"Why drop us off here, though? Surely there are better places on this world."

"You wanted to be set down near Thor," Sigyn said. "The mechanism put us on the same tectonic plate that your Asgard friend is on."

"Suddenly, accounts of Jotun tactics in the War make more sense," Loki chuckled.

Sif nodded. "Now let us g-"

Tensing, "We have a visitor," Sigyn said as the faintest whisper of whirrring came to their ears. 

"Where?" Loki asked. 

"You Asgards have weak eyes," she muttered. 

" ** _I_** am Asgard as well," Sif reminded her. 

"With the functioning form of a Jotun," Sigyn pointed out the obvious. "Don't wait for the light to come from the thing to you, _look at_ it," Sigyn encouraged. 

Sif peered at the approaching flier, as did Loki, his face rippling blue, rippling pale as he strained to see what was coming. 

"Blades spinning atop it," Sif said. "Some manner of stylized fish or bird on the side of it." 

"Now its my turn," Loki said, casting an illusion to cloak the three of them. 

But not before the SHIELD helicopter saw them.

**~~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**  
>  note: yes, the brown robe is based on what Thor and Odin have in previews for the upcoming Thor II.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologize to my readers for the typos which have been in my stories - in particular the mighty Hammer named Mjolnir (which I always thought spelled Moljinar or something like that)...and the Vanir by the name of Njord (who I had thought was named Niorn and Njorn)

**Asgard:**

_This is the pathway I saw in my oracle-dream,_ Frigga knew as she stood at the end of the walkway in the Armory, calling upon the Destroyer to awaken and serve. Visions of the future most often came to her in that time between sleep and waking, and this had been no different.

It stood before her, the open face nothing but an abyssal void, as it would be until a terminal attack was required.

"Go to Midgard. Find my son. Let only yourself be stopped only by him," Frigga instructed it, and stepped out of its way as it marched toward the stairs...

"Halt!" Odin commanded it.

...and it stopped after placing its foot on the first step.

Looking at her from where he stood at the top of those stairs, Odin exhaled, his chest hurting. _I barely finished instructing Hod and Idun to seek refuge for a time, before I became aware of activity within the Armory._ "Do not do this, Frigga," Odin said.

"You banished one son and surrendered the other," Frigga said. "At least with this we may regain one."

"At what cost?"

"At the cost of Thor learning what one must give up. I do not need to know what enchantment you laid upon Mjolnir, as I know how our son will earn its return."

Odin walked down a few steps. "While I am pleased to hear that he will be returning to us, there must be other ways."

"This is the future," Frigga said, her voice frostier than Jotunheim.

Odin did not move out of the Destroyer's way.

  


* * *

_when It Will Be confronts All That Is,_  
 _the heavens shake;_  
 _when All That Is confronts It Will Be,_  
 _the heavens shake;_  
\--Asgard proverb.

  


* * *

**Midgard:**

_We have certainly faced harder things to elude than that blade-topped flying thing,_ Sif knew. She would have preferred to take it down herself, but Sigyn had pointed out 'it is out of range, and only the Jotuns of Niflheim can fire ice from their bodies.'

"I hear Thor," Loki said, and they made their way towards the nearby house where he had heard his brother's voice coming from. Tapping upon one clear wall, Sif suspected that smiling cheerfully would not be entirely fruitful; looking through the glass, she saw Thor turn away from the two women he was chatting up, and saw the look Thor got on his face - right before he charged at the glass at them.

Sigyn backed away before Thor bore through the glass, knocking Sif down with him atop her.

Knowing that an opportunity like this would be rarer than divine dwarves, Loki did something he would normally never do: deny Sif the chance to fight for herself or to finish a fight that had involved her. Yanking Thor off her, Loki told Sif, "You can kill me for it later, great Lady," and did not hesitate to fight back when Thor struck him so he would release Thor.

"Thor!" Sif shouted. "It is us. Laufey cast a thing upon me, perhaps for this very reason."

And her words made sense to Thor, who was therefore was about to quit the fight and speak with her - right until she placed a hand on Loki's shoulder, which turned the skin there Jotun blue and whorled.

"Imposters!" Thor declared at them.

"You do not believe us?" Sif asked.

Loki said, "Shocking."

"Loki, stop!" Sif told him.

But he couldn't. Not now, not when he at last at long last had a chance to win. _A fair fight, brother, something we never had before,_ Loki knew as he spun around Thor and knocked the bigger brother to the ground.

Thor swung - missed - and swung a second time, knocking Loki back. "If you truly are Loki, prove it!" Thor challenged as he barreled towards him.

"Gladly," Loki said, right before Thor went right through him. Standing where Thor had charged at him from, Loki said, "Anything else, brother?"

"Jotuns cannot do that. I know enough war stories and booklearning to know it does not lie within their capability," Thor said, taking a deep breath, and saying "I was mistaken; Jane, Darcy, come. This is my brother Loki and -" tried to peer at the other faces, striving to recognize... "Sif?" he asked.

"It took you long enough to know who I am," Sif said.

"Yeah, dude, how can't you know your wife when you're looking at her?" Darcy asked, kidding. Everyone turned to look at her, with varying degrees of surprise and So Very Not Amused on their faces. "O-kay, I'll just go scratch that myth off the 'things I thought were true' list. Wait...you're Loki?" she asked him.

"Yes," Loki said.

"And you're Sif?"

"Yes," Sif said. "Why?"

"Oh...no reason."

"And who is this?" Thor asked, looking at the other one.

"She is Sigyn," Loki said. "Assigned by Laufey to be our tutor, jailor, and hostage."

"Hostage?" Jane asked.

"Were we to violate our captivity in any way, she would bear the punishment," Sif said.

"How is that fair?"

"I am no warrior," Sigyn replied. "Sif and Loki are of Asgard and hold value to my lord king Laufey."

"That's not an answer," Jane insisted.

"To injure a hostage deliberately would be counter to laws older than either of our kings," Thor said and his voice grew softer as he added, "and I have given Laufey sufficient provocation without it being added to."

Jane blinked and looked at Loki and Sif again. "Wait, _you're_ the friends?"

"Yes," Sif said.

"Not what you expected?" Loki asked.

"Actually...I was expecting spies." _'Left in the cold' and all that._

"That is something we did when we were much younger."

"Cool," Darcy said. 

Knowing how Sif thought, Thor said "I am still banished, Sif. And I remain in a mood to not have it end."

"Because of these humans," Sif guessed.

"No. While they are delightful company, they do not outweigh the fact that it is I who is responsible for what fate has befallen you."

"I shoulder my own fate, Thor," Sif said. To Jane's ears, the words sounded romantic, even tender; but the tone was threatening and warning.

"Good ta take responsibility," Darcy said to Sif. To Sigyn, "So, can I ask - who did you piss off to end up a hostage?"

Sigyn said, "For all of time, I have only two options - I can accept whatever tasks my lord Laufey assigns me, or I can remain in attendance upon my husband Utgardloki while he remains chained and bound."

To the humans, "'Loki' is a common name on most worlds," Sif mentioned before they could ask.

"Just two things?"

"Everyone is judged in accordance with their abilities," Sigyn said. "You find this offensive?"

"In principle, no," Jane said. "But you're -"

"I cannot fight. My greatest ability is to persevere, to accompany, to shoulder what can be done as I assist those better suited to the tasks they undertake."

 _You're a research assistant._ "Exactly!" Darcy said. "Though could you sound a little less damn happy about it?"

"It is my place," Sigyn said. "Why should I spend millenia in misery?"

"Millenia?"

"Like the Asgardians, my kind have no pre-set time of death. We live until we are killed. And as I have no enemies sworn to end me..."

"Millenia."

"Yes."

And that was when the Bifrost opened up and deposited the Destroyer right behind the back yard.

"Oh...crap," Darcy said.

"And now to die," Sigyn said.

_Again, a little less cheerful, please?_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: been watching The Hollow Crown: Henry IV lately, so the language may be a bit different.

Loki looked up at the Destroyer, seeing a thing spoken of only in lines such as 'and then we unleashed the Destroyer' and 'duty done, the Destroyer returned to sleep.' "Shall you take the lead again, brother?" Loki asked Thor, for which Sif glared at him.

Thor considered it, then said "No. My rashness cost us all dearly. I defer to you, brother."

"Uh, dudes, big metal man's getting closer," Darcy pointed out.

A length of rope appeared in Loki's hands, which earned him a look from Jane as he tossed one end to Thor. "I trust you can still run; or has your mortality cut away even that?" Loki asked.

"Watch me," Thor said, and ran towards the Destroyer, rope in hand.

"I guess this is a good time for us to all run," Jane said.

"I never run," Sif replied. "Even when I -"

"Are not Asgardian," Sigyn said.

Sif was about to snap at her, to correct her, but then remembered the lessons about how 'unarmed' only meant 'weaponless' when it was spoken of Asgardians. She looked at Sigyn, waiting for something further.

"Remember when you last made a weapon," Sigyn said.

Sif nodded.

"Same thing. Remember, remember."

Sif felt the anger rise back up, the indignation, the sheer _offense_...

"Your preferred weapon is a club?"

Looking down at her hand, Sif could see that that was the shape of it. _I perhaps considered clubbing those responsible. Instead I shamed them with my success._ Her club shrank slightly. "Now what?" she asked.

Sigyn said, "Swing your arms around, about. Rehearse holding your favorite weapon," and Sigyn's arms each formed a halberd. And she charged at Sif.

Feeling the _rush_ down through her limbs and around her innards, Sif raised her arms in defense, blocking Sigyn's blows. With a glance, Sif saw that her own hands were swords now - the club had flattened and sharpened, with a matching one on the other arm.

"Exactly so."

Sif grinned and was about to charge, when she stopped and said, "Get to safety, the three of you." _You wouldn't fight, I know, so don't get in the way._ And then she charged at the Destroyer while Thor and Loki were parting ways and spreading the rope in front of the Destroyer's ankles - or where ankles would be - and pulling taut as they ran past.

Only for the Destroyer's legs to turn angular and sharp where the rope touched it, severing the attempt to trip it.

As the brothers turned to try another attack, with Loki firing blasts of magic at the Destroyer, Sif was dodging furnace-blasts from the device's face.

An idea occurred to Loki, "Thor! You studied this beast when you were a boy," _drinking in all of the sparse mentions of the Destroyer, sitting avidly through days-long accounts for brief snatches and mentions of its ways and movements._ "You know best what places are safe for your new friends. Take them there!"

Thor placed a fist to his chest, a mid-battle sketch of a salute, and ran to do so gladly, ideas and possibilities already running through his head. _Indoors would become a trap,_ he knew; _with a roof vulnerable to collapse, and everything within capable of burning._ Feeling which way the wind was literally blowing, Thor guided Jane and Darcy and Sigyn to the lee of the house.

As Thor did that, Loki magicked away a Thor-sized clod of dirt from where the Destroyer was about to step next...

...and watched as the metal bands of the leg widened and elongated, thus avoiding the entire form pitching forward. Instead, it erupted another gout of flame at Loki, but not half as great an inferno as what it looked about to spew once it took aim at one of the Frost Giants on the grounds, and -

Thor shoved Sigyn out of the way, and himself only narrowly avoided more than a singeing. 

As Loki bowled the Destroyer to the ground for sparse seconds only, bowled with the help of several of him (mostly for distraction, but he knew ways to add bits of mass for dire times such as this), Sif looked at its bonfire face and thought over all she had learned, in Asgard and Jotunheim and elsewhere earlier still. Her face steeled into hard resolve and she charged at it - her mind summoning up every displeasure she had ever encountered, every mockery she had ever heard or overheard, all the teasing and taunting and tripping and underhandedness, til her own heart felt yet hotter than the Destroyer's flames - and Sif was by then leaping up to dive into the open face the moment it was standing upright once more.

"NO!" Loki and Thor roared. Loki redoubled his attacks on the Destroyer, raining down all manner of things upon it. Thor dragged Sigyn with him and Darcy and Jane, knowing intimately as he did how the bonds of loyalty and custodianship flowed in two directions among Asgardians, and for right now did not care if Jotuns saw it the same way; _custodianship existed between Sif and Sigyn, and I shall honor that,_ Thor was resolved.

Having gotten Jane and Sigyn and Darcy to safety, Thor took a deep breath and looked back the way they had come, at the Destroyer firing - _sputtering its blasts now_ \- at Loki all over the field. Looking once more at his human friends and at Sigyn, Thor requested - asked - beseeched them to "Please, remain here. Do not follow me."

"You want its attention," Sigyn half-said half-asked.

Thor nodded.

Sigyn held out her palm, a sharp blade extending out from the thumb and the little finger, and a handle over her forearm; sliding the axe off herself, she held it out to Thor. "We are not savages. We know obligation," Sigyn said.

"Thank you," Thor said, _this will both prove a weapon against the Destroyer, and it will draw the Destroyer's attention away from Loki...at least long enough for my brother to strike it down._ And, ice-axe in hand, he ran out onto the scorched grounds, charging at the flame-spitter with all he had.

Interupted only by the echoing cries of thunder as clouds formed over the SHIELD encampment and a tiny yet familiar object zoomed from inactivity into the thunderclouds, where it made an arc and flew towards the battle.

Mjolnir raced through the air, circling the Destroyer easily a dozen times, before swooping down and landing its grip in Thor's free hand. Whilst Thor could feel his armor and might returning to him, what he beheld was -

Without provocation or external cause, the Destroyer's head flung back, striking into its spine with force enough to have crippled a man had a man's head done that to his spine. The Destroyer's clavicle and chest half-ripped half-shredded half-exploded, Sif rising up from it.

Both brothers' jaws dropped (as did everyone else's watching), and the Destroyer simply completely dropped. The fires died before the dust had even risen from the impact.

"Best. Reenacting. Of Alien. Ever!" Darcy said.

For her own part, as she stood there, glad she had made it through, and not a little surprised it had worked, Sif was not armor-plated. Her skin kept shifting its ridginess and color and nature, as though unable to decide what she herself was. And with her skin, so did her clothes - the red cloak and cousin to chain mail, and the skin-robe.


	6. Chapter 6

Loki and Thor were swift to run over to Sif to help her out of the Destroyer if she needed any help; Sigyn was slower, with Jane and Darcy. While no assistance was required, Sif appreciated they were there for her. "We are pleased you made it through that experience," Thor said to her.

"Do my plans strike you as foolhardy as yours did, Clevershield?" Loki asked her.

Sif smiled and said, "Some times, definately." As soon as she set foot on solid ground, Sif's body chose the ridges and cloak of a Jotun; she was about to bite back her reaction to that, but something occurred to her: _I'm more numb than anything right now, at least for right now. Don't have any anger or annoyance in me now._

"That was awesome," Darcy told Sif when the others caught up.

"How do you feel?" Jane asked.

"Hungry," Sif said.

"Makes sense. If fighting a gigantic monster doesn't work up an appetite, what would?" Jane joked, but the smile died away when she saw Thor's friends - new and old - sharing a look with him. "What?"

"I will explain it while they are eating," Thor promised her.

"Our meal may be delayed," Loki said, the first to notice the clouds forming overhead.

The Bifrost opened at the same time that the Jotunheim passageway touched down, more than doubling the amount of dust and dirt and bugs that were airborne when just one was open for a second.

Before there was anything visible in the dust soup, "Mi'lord," Sigyn said to Laufey, using the Jotun eyesight she had tried explaining the use of to Sif. "Allfather, hanged god," she said to Odin.

As the dust was settling, in part prompted by what he saw, in part by what Sigyn had said. "Father," Thor said. "Laufey."

Once the air was clear enough for human eyes, "Jane, your jaw," Darcy whispered, and _and yup, she picks it up off the floor. So, that's Odin, huh? Skinnier than I thought he'd be, based on the myths. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised Thor was telling the truth about his godhood - not with the Miss Hypothermia contestants and Loki. And I haven't asked him what I really really always wanted to know about him._

And standing in the center of the Bifrost's touchdown-pattern, was Odin. Standing in the center of the Jotunheimr touchdown-pattern, was Laufey. They moved almost as one, walking to the edge of where Sif had half-clambered out of the Destroyer half been helped out of it by Loki and Thor, equidistiant from one another and from the humans and younger ones of their kinds.

"You have done well, Thor," Odin said. "You regained Mjolnir by being a boon to those in need, by setting aside animosities and rivalries (and more) when a greater threat presented itself, and you knew when to seek revenge." To Sif, Odin said, "I am pleased you yet live."

"Allfather," Sif said on her knee.

"Now, now it is time," Odin said to Laufey, who understood it in the context of a discussion they had shared a great long while ago. "Loki. Step forward."

As he came forth, Sif brushed up against Loki, and his skin once more changed where she touched.

Odin took brief note of this, then turned to Laufey and said "You have refined your powers, Laufey." Feeling the pressure in his heart, Odin looked at Laufey and said "One last godly thing."

Laufey gave a nod, and each ruler of a Realm placed one hand on a different one of Loki's shoulders, Sif backing away as he was pulled slightly and unintentionally away.

Had two great and mighty hands not been gripping him by his shoulders, Loki most assuredly would have collapsed as energies unfamiliar surged through him. He could feel himself growing, increasing in measure all over himself; not too Jotun warrior size, but still to more than he had been before.

Centuries ago, Loki had had occassion to see shards of the mighty ropes Dropnir and Glepnir; he had sensed their incredible power even from the safe viewing distance. What he saw wrapping and binding him and never letting go, was something stronger yet than either rope of legend. "The bindings kept you small, Loki," Odin said, 'Asgardian sized' being the implication. "They impaired you in no other way."

Completed, both hands let go of Loki, who started to drop but caught himself, though his mind was racing, fighting against doing any reeling. He could feel himself rippling in appearance much as Sif had when she had brought down the Destroyer. Asgardian visage, then Jotun in visage, and back again and around and around.

Odin collapsed, catching himself only in the sense that he did not fall onto the ground. Loki started to go to him, but Odin stopped him with the statement, "You are a prince and may yet be a king. To whom do you have a duty before you have one to your father?"

Loki turned to Sif, taking a step towards her, mouthing 'I am not entirely certain I can do this.'

Sif looked at him and knelt before him, her vulnerableness exposed, trusting him.

Loki placed one hand upon the flat plane of her shoulderblade, and thought of how Sif had been. He could feel something happening, though wasn't sure what it was, not entirely. When it felt completed, Loki lifted away his hand, fingertips lingering last, and then they as well were gone from her skin.

An Asgardian woman's face looked up at him and, feeling it was best to do so, lifted her fist to one shoulder, a salute from one still low to the ground. Loki removed his cloak and let it drape over and around her, shaping into a full uniform. _A green uniform. I like it._

Sif's face rippled once more, as did the rest of her, though the green uniform was unaltered.

 _Maybe not as completed as I had thought,_ Loki thought.

"And now, kill," Laufey commanded.

 _Well, as you're insistant._ Loki lunged at Laufey - and came up short, Sif having grabbed him.

But she found herself holding him not by his flesh or by his clothes...but by one of the strands of binding.

Odin nodded. "You may fight," he granted. _Only a similar binding can remove those of the other. One of the few things I didn't try. Each type of rope has its own termination point - glepnir existed on a timer, dropnir's end was wrought by pressure._

Thor watched, fascinated, as Loki and Sif obeyed, at first hesitantly with the sort of practice swings you see in warm-ups, and giving way to single combat with very little held back _much as their sparring sessions tended to evolve into._ And, rare as it was to see, it wasn't the first fight Loki had been in in which he didn't use magic.

Jane wasn't sure what she was seeing. _They just finished kicking the ass of a giant alien robot, and now they're doing gladiatorial combat? Ripping ropes off one another, when those ropes are only visible once they've been grabbed; I can about imagine what Darcy's thinking: 'majorly awkward.'_

Laufey knew that _The way to free one, is to free both._

At last came the minute when the last major cords of binding were torn from around Sif and Loki's respective bodies, and the capilary threads fell away harmlessly.

Thor looked at them: at Sif, in green uniform with her usual red cape, black hair and Asgardian face and hands in plain view; at Loki... _my brother looks...appears Jotun._ Thor thought, _I get banished, and everything changes._


	7. Made king

Darcy came back chuckling. Back from where Coulson and his fellow agents were having a silent weaponless standoff with Odin and Laufey who were - in Darcy's opinion - standing guard like those stone sentinels in Lord of the Rings.

"Care to share?" Jane asked as Darcy sat down with her, Thor, Loki, Sif, and Sigyn.

"I think the SHIELD guys think the 'if i stand here and stare at them, they'll be intimidated' strategy they tried on us," Darcy said, "is gonna work on the kings..."

"Odin and Laufey," Loki supplied.

"Yeah, them. They're not really..." and trailed off when all the aliens (minus Odin and Laufey) were looking intently at her. "Gods?"

"We answer to that," Loki said.

Thor nodded.

"And you're..." Jane asked, then tried again, "You'll be leaving?"

"In time," Thor said.

"Will you be back?"

"I came back."

Sif snorted. "The mortal seeks reassurance, Thor."

Loki said, "I've no doubt her ancestors are greatly joyed to know the Thunderer has set his hand upon their bloodline again."

Eyes wide and voice small, Jane asked, "What?"

Thor set his left hand gently on Janes' hands. "I was friends with your ancestors, Jane. Told them many a fine tale."

"Lies, some of them," Sif muttered.

"Exaggerations," Loki mediated.

"Which one?" Darcy asked, all but leaping on that opportunity.

"This certainly is not the first time Thor has lost his hammer," was all Loki would say.

"Pattern of behavior, dude?" Darcy asked Thor.

"One could say," Thor grumbled. 

"Have you ever considered tying good ol' Myu-myu to your wrist?"

"Loki did once, with Fandral's aid," Thor said at the same time that Loki asked -

"Myu myu?"

"Mjolnir," Thor said. "Like those times, I am glad to be returning to Asgard with my friends old and new." But then, seeing her reaction to that - or to something tied to that - "You are troubled, friend Darcy?" Thor asked, seeing her furrowed brow.

"You could say that," Darcy said. "What kind of treaty lets somebody take hostages?"

 _Hostages are the least of things permitted by treaty, but best not to worry you with that._ "'Lets' is a poor word," Loki said dryly. "More apt would be 'permits the option.'"

"I think Darcy means that it doesn't seem fair," Jane said.

Sif gave her look which would have been far more withering before today. 

Thor asked before Sif could, "You are aghast that a victim has the right to demand settlement of their aggressor?" Off their expressions, "I did tell you that I was party to the invasion. An act of war or a childhood raiding party, the outcome is the same...so long as both sides wish to maintain peace."

Darcy was mouthing 'childhood raiding party?'

"Renumeration and bloodprice would do Jotunheim no benefit," Sigyn said, "not with our agreement to remain restricted to our own Realm."

"Why ask for money if you can't spend it anywhere?" Darcy asked. "Wait a - "And you came here. Earth is part of your realm?"

"Sif Shieldwarrior Grandslayer Bird-"

Sif coughed.

Sigyn skipped past the rest of the titles, "was given full freedom of movement and travel by my Lord and King Laufey - to deny or restrict or refuse her, would be an act of treason."

Nodding, "It was absurdly easy to get here," Sif said. "I could be counted a loophole to the agreement, but I would not have thought so at the time." And she noticed Jane was looking intently at her. "Yes?" Sif asked her.

"Why did you volunteer to be a hostage? Thor told me that you're one of his best friends and a great warrior."

"She is," Thor and Loki said at the same time Sif said -

"I am. I am a warrior. One of my titles is War. To have attained that, I must know not only how to be prepared at all times for battle and warfare, but I must also know when the time is not right. And I must be able to weigh myself and others in the accounting. Neither of our Realms would do well for another war between them, not so soon particularly. Of all Laufey could have demanded, he demanded a life be turned into his custody; rather than watch my friends go into his care, I went myself." Watching Jane's face, "Does this answer your question?"

Jane nodded.

Before the next question could be asked, Loki volunteered, "The Allfather's renegotiation of one into two, was treaty-permitted because those who formed and shaped the treaty knew that a lone hostage may go mad or may turn traitor - a fellow hostage keeps the mind at ease while they are kept."

"There wasn't any tradition of prisoner exchange, or anything?" Jane asked, thinking of the tales her aunts had told her of the Cold War.

"The treaties pre-date the Asgardian people," Thor said. "Some say they are older than the Jotuns as well."

"So the treaties _are_ your traditions?"

"They are," Sif said. "And new ones are carved into existence when a war ends, to accompany those already in existence."

Loki nodded. "You should see the tomes which came into being at the end of the war between Asgard and Vanaheim."

"Sounds like something for when I'm in the neighborhood," Darcy said, intending it as a joke, but had a feeling that - judging from the faces - it was taken as a promise. "So, what now?"

"Now I must find my place," Loki said.

"Your place is in Asgard," Thor said firmly and not a little insisting.

"A Frost Giant in Asgard. Oh yes, that will go over well," and in Darcy's opinion, if it was possible for a voice to roll its eyes, Loki's was doing that.

"They will watch their tongues. Or Mjolnir will laden their tongues."

"I would offer my steel, were it required," Sif said.

Thor looked at her briefly, his eyes confused.

Loki smiled. "How long have you known me to be stopped by anything, Thor?" with wisps and traceries of a new outward appearance floating above his face.

"A guise, an illusion," Thor said, grinning, growing pleased.

"Initially, at least," and the wisps collapsed into nothingness. "Later, we shall see. Though we all know it will not fool Heimdall."

"Heimdall?" Jane asked, seriously wishing Erik hadn't insisted she read that children's book he had found.

Thor said, "The Gatekeeper of Asgard and guardian of the Bifrost Bridge."

Sif said, "My brother," in a voice that warned off further questions in that line.

Jane ducked her head and turned to Sigyn, quiet Sigyn, and asked her, "What about you? Where will you go?"

"My service has not been revoked," Sigyn replied.

 _She's going to follow me into Asgard? Oh lovely,_ Sif thought. "You would be easier by far to explain away than Loki's long-hid visage."

Taking no umbrage, Loki said, "Quite true."

"Of course her words are," Sigyn told him.

Sif groaned. "Is this what Jarnsaxa was like to your ears?" she asked Thor.

"She spoke less," Thor said.

"Only because Jarnsaxa was faster with a blade than her tongue," Loki muttered.

"Loki..."

"Your bodyguard forked my tongue in a way my magic couldn't heal. Remember when we finally found a doctor -"

"And it was a Dwarven healer who stitched your lips together so your tongue could recuperate," Thor said, nodding. "I _do_ remember, brother."

"Could have been worse," Sif said.

Loki looked at her with disbelief.

"The healer might have insisted upon working in Asgard, and then all the court and everyone else would be forever reminding you of the blissful silence you gave them during your recovery," an amused look on her face.

"That is worse," Loki had to admit.

**~~~**

When they saw Odin and Laufey returning, Thor and the others all stood up in a row, even Jane and Darcy, who was wondering what Erik was working on that he wasn't back yet. The Asgardians and Jotuns lowered their heads, chins touching their chests, in deference to their nearing lords; the humans tried to follow suit.

"Lift your gaze," Laufey told them, and Odin didn't countermand that, so they did.

Setting a hand on Thor's and Loki's shoulders, Odin told them "Once when you both were young, I told you that you both were born to be kings, but that only one of you could rule. Thor, as you have demonstrated the beginnings of your ability to understand what a king must do, I task you."

Loki tried not to let show how he felt about Thor getting the throne.

Sif watched Loki's face as much as Thor's.

Odin continued: "You will go with Laufey back to Jotunheim."

Loki blinked.

"What?" Jane asked.

"Father?" Thor asked.

"Umm..." Darcy tried saying.

"Asgardians live until we are slain," Odin said. _Or thus we may infer from the few who have both lived long and failed to die in battle, such as myself. We age, as does most everything else in the universe within and outside of the Nine Realms, and between healing my wounds and casting Loki's spell, I have postwar aged quicker than some would expect - ditto the pains in my heart._ "While the Jotuns are very long-lived, even in comparison with others of the Nine Realms, their span of years can more easily be considered finite." _Their advantage in visage is to not change once they attain adulthood - their voices change time and again, and they may continue to grow, but never again do their looks shift in any way._ "You, Thor, will learn from Laufey all that you can in regards to the rule of Jotunheim." _And there you shall rule once Laufey dies. Unless I die before Laufey does, in which case your learning will do you no ill when you sit upon the throne in Gladsheim in Asgard._

"And what of I, Allfather?" Loki asked.

"There is a Realm which has been rudderless for far too long," Odin said. "By the older laws, it is property of the Jotun race. But contrary to the natives' myths, their Realm was not the reason for the war which kept Jotunheim's people away. Do you agree, Lord Laufey, that Loki would make a fine lord of Midgard?"

Loki wasn't the only one who was gobsmacked by this line of thinking.

"I would prefer Sif," Laufey said. "But I trust she will remain with Loki as advisor and power."

"I shall, Odin Allfather, Lord Laufey," Sif said to them each in turn.

"We don't need guidance!" Jane said. "We do okay on our own."

Odin looked at her and said, quietly, kindly, grandfatherly, "You and I both know better, Jane Foster."

Thor looked to Laufey, but Darcy asked before he could: "You sure there won't be a lynch mob waiting for Thor when he gets to Yot- Jotenheim?"

Laufey smiled at the question, proud that the human could ask it. "Thor's offense has since been paid for," Laufey said.

"So that's the end of it?"

"It is."

Thor took a breath and asked, "When must we leave?"

"Soon. Say what you will." As Thor turned to his friends, Laufey said that "Jord would be proud of this development's outcome," and Thor wasn't sure which of them he was saying it to.

Before he said anything to his friends, Thor looked back to Laufey and asked, "May I return soon?"

"Within the decade," Laufey said. "Within a handful of years if all proceeds well."

Turning back to them with a huge smile, Thor said, "Then I shall indeed be seeing you both again, Jane, Darcy." And clapping a hand on their shoulders, "Loki, Sif, I wish you both all good fortune, and know our paths will cross again."

"And again, and again," Sif said.

"That has ever been the way of it," Loki said. "We will see you."

"Question," Darcy said to Loki, "what do we call you, O High Master of Earth?"

"Not ornate enough," Loki said with a small grin.

Sif snorted.


	8. Conference

Tony Stark didn't recognize all of the flags around the round table here. Most of them, sure, he did...the USA, Japan, China, Egypt, Latveria, Brazil, India. And then the Stark Industries logo on a flag where he and Pepper were sitting, not far from Justin Hammer's seat, galling as it was to Tony; and a few other major companies of similar prominence and talent. Then Agent Coulson and Director Fury of SHIELD, across the table from a pair whose logo looked like an octopus. _But the four compass points each have a flag I don't know._ And each person at the four compass points was in a cloak and hood. _But then, so is the guy from Latveria. Victor used to be a nice guy to do business with - haven't heard from him since his accident nearly cost him his company._

The room's doors closed, locked, and - _are they sealing us in?_ \- before introductions were made. The octopus logo, Tony learned, was for an organization called HYDRA, whose representatives were Agent Wynn and Director Young.

"Why are they here?" Agents Coulson and Wynn asked, each pointing at the other.

"Because you, none of you, will wish me to repeat myself," said the hooded man sitting at the north compass point. His hooded cloak was green and black. "That is the reason for this."

"Great, so you know who we are, and we've all met everybody," Tony said, wondering if this table really was the carved ice that it seemed to be. "Who the hell're you?"

"Have you met?" Loki asked him.

"What?"

Standing at the western end of the round table, "I am Hel," she said from the depths of a hooded cloak which was on one side the color of fog and on the other side was the color of barren croplands. "Governor of Helheim and Niflheim. I am here purely to observe the proceedings."

Loki said, "I, meanwhile, am Loki. At the south, is the great and the good Sif, the foremost warrior of Asgard and defeater of the foremost of most other Realms."

Sif gave a nod in her red and silver hooded cloak.

"Eastwards is Hod," Loki said, _one of the few able to make even Odin Allfather sound a retreat. What a heady ruling trio we make - I, Sif, and Hod._

Hod just sat there, waiting for the proceedings to begin.

"We of HYDRA are perfectly willing to indulge our hosts even to tolerating SHIELD at this meeting," said Director Young.

"Likewise for SHIELD," Fury said, "though we reserve the right to abrogate at a later point."

Young nodded agreement.

Loki smiled. "Such generousness from those who feel they have little to lose. Most of those at this table, however, are aware to some degree that your world is part of a larger cosmos."

"No offense, but that's not news," said Rhodes at the US flag.

"An inhabited universe. Home to many other worlds with a civilization which has existed for far longer than your planet has been. By treaty and agreement within that civilization, this planet - _Earth_ \- has been appointed a ruler to govern you...a post which has sadly been vacant for some time."

"And should we refuse?" Coulson asked.

Loki's smile grew larger. "How can you fight one another _and_ myself?"

"Kill you first," Wynn said.

Loki and Sif chuckled.

"You could not even kill your own gods," Hod remarked dryly. "You would find us impossible to end."

"You are not gods," said Japan's representative.

"Prove it," he invited.

"We are straying from the topic," Loki said. "I am telling you all this as a kindness. From here onwards, I am in command."

"And why should we cooperate? What befits any who do so?" asked Doom.

The ice table retracted back into Loki's hands. _I honestly wasn't sure if that would work,_ Loki thought, having been ready to hide it with magic, in case. "There are advantages to not standing in my way," Loki said. "But for your mortal sakes, I will begin small: All of your wars and conflicts, must be approved by me. That is not restricted to the nations present," addressing SHIELD, HYDRA, and the businessmen present.

"We can't abide by that," Fury said, seeing a matching look (to his own) on Young's face.

"And yet you shall," Loki said. "For those who abide by the covenant I set down, shall be protected by that same covenant.

"What about economic warfare?" Hammer asked, silent agreement on the sentiment from Tony and Pepper.

"All forms are covered. Prosperity, nutrition, single combat, throngs vs throngs, personal and impersonal weapons, to name a few."

"And if we don't kowtow like good little puppies?" Tony asked. "You'll do what, exactly? There's four - three? - of you."

Loki chuckled. "You think I would reveal my greater powers at the slightest taunt? Shame, such a shame to hear that from you. Your ancestors knew better."

"Fine, so you know how to play poker. Can you warn us what your not-really-the-greatest powers are?"

"This is your warning. It comes with no demonstration."

"Will you share what you have?" asked China's representative.

Doom was quick to second that: "Your technology, at the least."

"We shall see," Loki said. "That is, after all, contingent on cooperation." _And loyalty, but allow them to find that in time._

"Is there anyone we might appeal this decision to?" Pepper asked. When Loki was looking at her, "To appeal your posting to be ruler of Earth."

Loki raised his hands - blue hands with raised lines nothing to do with blood - and the sleeves fell to reveal more of the same skin, and Loki drew back his hood, revealing -

Sif saw the same face she had always seen before their jaunt onto Jotunheim and its revelations.

"There is an appeal process," Loki confirmed. _You could petition Odin, who approved my posting here. Or you could see if Aegir or Sutur could be woken up. Few others are of sufficient authority to out-decide Odin._

With the knowledge that there was a way out, and the knowledge that they could gain from working with him, all those assembled had by day's end agreed to the terms put before them... _not that they had a great choice,_ Loki knew, and wondered which would be the first to cross him.


End file.
